During medical procedures such as surgeries, it is critical that the patient's airway remains open so that the patient properly breathes during the procedure. Keeping the airway open is especially important in procedures where anesthesia is used as anesthesia causes the muscles to relax and renders the patient in a state where he may be unable to wake up if the airway passage is blocked.
One known way for ensuring that the airway remains open during medical procedures is to have the anesthesiologist monitor the patient and hold the patient's head in the proper position. If the airway becomes blocked, the anesthesiologist can perform a chin lift maneuver by tilting and holding the patients chin in a backward fashion, or a “jaw thrust” by pushing the patient's jaw upward to open the airway. While these maneuvers work, the anesthesiologist must continue to monitor and/or hold the patient's head position throughout the procedure. Thus, the anesthesiologist will be unable to perform other tasks that may be needed during the procedure. Furthermore, during long procedures, the anesthesiologist may become fatigued from having to hold the patient's head in a particular position for an extended period of time.
Another known way to maintain airways open is to have a medical professional intubate the patient by inserting an endotracheal tube through the patient's mouth. However, endotracheal tubes can cause irritation of the throat and/or vocal chords that may lead to additional surgeries or problems.
Additionally, it is also known to use a headrest or apparatus that utilizes two or more fixed posts to try and maintain airways open. However, the known devices are not adjustable, therefore, depending on the size and shape of a patient's head and neck, the posts may not be properly positioned against the patient's jaw to adequately open or maintain openness of the airway. Furthermore, a patient will often experience varying depths of anesthesia, whereby more jaw thrust will be required as the patient goes into deeper depths of anesthesia. Thus, the anesthesiologist must continually monitor the status of the patients airway when using the prior devices.
Therefore, there is a need to produce an airway management device that is adjustable to ensure that the device is correctly situated against the jaw of a patient to ensure that the patient's airways remain open during surgical procedures, while being economical and easy to manufacture and install.